A particle-hole model for light scattering by simple fluids

The intensity, I, of depolarized light scattered by simple fluids is calculated by modeling the fluid as a dilute gas of dielectric spheres at low density and as a dilute gas of spherical holes in a dielectric continuum at high density. It is shown that a pair of spheres has more inherent scattering power than a pair of holes. Thus, at liquid density, I is smaller than would be predicted by using gas-phase scattering theory plus liquid-state statistics, as has generally been done in the past; the implications of our result for existing theories are discussed.